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Wednesday, April 29, 2009
New nuum?
So I went along to the Hardcore Continuum talk in the post below, and it was pretty fun. First up was a journey through east, always a joy. I have to confess I haven't been through Hackney Wick, where I used to work, in daylight for ages and bwoy, I've seen the pictures in Time Out, but the Olympic building site is staggering. All that weird, post-industrial hinterland east of the Wick is now a hive of activity, skeletal metal shapes making incredible sky rhythms that will soon be stadia. But really I was on the way to witness the construction of other great structures.
The UEL Docklands Campus is odd too, not a part of London I know well - perched on the river by the City airport. Hard to put a finger on but seemed to be an surreal mix of the shiny new and dirty old architecture around there.
The seminars themselves seemed to go well, props to Jeremy and 9 for organising them. I think transcripts or audio of the talks will go up so I wont spoil them all. But the began with K Punks defence of the nuum which provided several of the most contentious points of the day, including the line "producers dont know anything about music" and the assertion that we live in creativity-deprived decade, relative to the '90s. I couldn't help clocking that in nuum terms the 90s had given us rave, jungle and garage, while this decade had given us dubstep, grime, funky, wonky and bassline. That's 5-3 to the '00s by my reckoning, so who you calling deprived Mr Punk? ;)
(Oh and Photek is a certified badman, made some of the greatest **music** of the '90s bar none, texturally and rhythmically. If your theoretical framework tells you he's crap, then your framework is completely broken!)
Alex Splintering Bone Ashes read a great piece about the naming of genres, including quite a bit on wonky-as-a-process, "wonkification" if you will. In fact I was pretty amazed how much the wonkword came up time and time again during the five hours. I took the opportunity to take the piss of 9 on his allergy to it, reminding him of the irony that it was he who took the piss of me for never inventing genre descriptors.
Joe and Dan made their cases and i think everyone in the room bar K Punk seemed to accept some kind of progress needs to be made. But it was left to Kojo and 9 to provide a dazzling afrofuturism framework, that stretched from Joker to Prince, used deliciously rich language while going to extraordinary lengths not to say the words funky or wonky. Kode kicked over the dictaphone while heading for his iPod, blanking the audio recording, so you'll just have to read the transcript if it goes up.
Overall the day was very enjoyable, even if a little too much time was spent claiming jungle is the be all and end all, Australia isn't a thing and producers don't know anything about music. Trivialising reductions aside, I thought I'd share my talk here.
Where now for the Nuum?
My position on the hardcore continuum is the following: it works great at the macroscopic level but breaks down at the microscopic level. It's this breakdown that has brought us all together today. Because if you have to throw away all your exceptions to make the rule, what value does the rule give?
For many years the nuum had it good: it evolved as an essentially linear progression, from hardcore to jungle, speed garage to 2step. Some musical aspects branched off but essentially culturally eliminated themselves from the continuum, like say drum & bass in 97 or broken beat in 2000, preserving the linearity of the continuum as the offshoots removed themselves from the nuums cultural heartland.
The nuum also had time on its side. Ravers who had it large in '88, went to jungle mecca AWOL in 94 could then join the mature ravers at Twice as Nice in 2000. Continuity was preserved.
But the implosion of garage in 2001/2 presented the continuum with an unprecedented challenge: no longer was the progression linear. Garage fragmented into three parts: grime, dubstep and house. Could it still be a continuum if it had broken into three, one part of which had temporarily – let's say 2002 to 2006 - migrated off to join another continuum, ie the global house one?
By the very nature of fragmentation comes dilution, and this is where the nuum begins to be challenged. In the divorce from garage, each of the three offspring took different parts: in general terms, grime the role of the MC, dubstep the focus on bass and house... the girls.
On his blog yesterday simon says a fallacy about the nuum is that it is prescriptive.
"The misconception here is a mental image of a bouncer standing in front of a door barring admittance. How it actually works: new sounds emerge from the area of sound/culture/demographic under consideration, they have links to what came before, and what's interesting is to work out how strong the continuity is and what are the significant differences. Sometimes the links start to seem tenuous to the point where it feels like the music has branched off in another direction, perhaps ultimately to merge with other traditions/continuums. But this is descriptive as opposed to prescriptive."
But right now I would begin to challenge its ability to even be descriptive. In his talk in Liverpool recently, Simon reduces the musical side of the continuum to the confluence of four factors: house, techno, hip hop and reggae dancehall, which works great for hardcore, jungle and garage. Yet as you increasingly migrate further from hardcore, elements of these become less influential, as new ones rise to the fore. So with grime you could reduce it to: jungle + garage + hip hop + dancehall. With dubstep: garage + jungle + dub reggae.
With each iteration of the nuum the founding pillars become shakier, and with justifiable reason. Not only did fragmentation post-garage cause dilution of the common pillars but the collective memory of those pillars began to fade amongst its creators. Ravers who had it large in '88, went to jungle mecca AWOL in 94 could then join the mature ravers at Twice as Nice in 2000. But what tangible influence do those bastions have now compared to the wealth of current music , when you consider MOBO winning grime MC chipmunk was ten years old when Twice as Nice was at its peak or unborn when rave began?
The question then is can we re-define a new set of continuity elements? Because with these the continuum would regain more value, and begin to better describe its current key movements. To do this I'd like to look at two cases: funky and wonky, both of which Simon has raised questionable concerns to as their validity as part of the continuum. Those concerns in term throw light on the limitations and the improper use of the theory.
For better or worse, I coined the term wonky in a piece in Pitchfork Media last year, to describe a common thread I saw running through multiple genres as disparate as instrumental hip hop, crunk, chip tunes, grime and dubstep. Unfortunately it has since been latched onto as a genre, something I still refute. But for the purpose of this talk, I'd like to talk about a specifically group of producers i mentioned in the Pitchfork piece: Joker, Zomby and Gemmy.
While there's no point claiming these three are fully "running the roads" right now, surely the gold standard test for nuum or not-nuum, in an attempt to preserve the theory's integrity simon takes the opposite position on this moot point.
"Wonky has the same relation to Ruff Squad as Squarepusher had to Remarc" he wrote on his blog.
Yet Joker came from grime, got advice from Wiley back in the day, lives in one of the nuums second cities – Bristol – is black and working class. Last year he was voted in the top 5 vinyl releases by the grime forum, alongside Rudekid, Logan Sama's new label, Silencer and... Ruff Squad.
In the same piece, Simon wrote on wonky, "I can't imagine real bodies moving in real space to this music." He wouldn't have needed to imagine if it he'd been at the Rinse FM rave last year to see Boy Betta Know's Maximum drop Joker tunes in a grime set.
Gemmy shares similarities with Joker in this regard and Zomby grew up hanging out with DJ SS and lived through both midlands rave and bassline scenes, as well as later attending seminal dubstep parties in London.
These three acts share many of the continuity aspects that are so key to the strength of the nuum, yet simon uses the nuum to reject them because they don't fit its original core tenants.
Indeed if you are to reject Zomby, Joker and Gemmy as part of the continuum, so should you reject dubstep as a whole. And while Simon was very sceptical of dubstep for most of this decade, perhaps out of loyalty to garage, he now accepts it as part of the continuum, ironically as it finds itself as far from its London roots as it ever has been.
Similarly we move to the current iteration of the continuum, funky. If you applied the litmus test to funky – is it big on road? – you'd get a resounding 'yes' but confusingly for the continuum, unlike d&b/garage in 1997, the urban popularity vote is currently split, between grime and funky. Either way simon's not sure.
You can forgive a musical theorem for being unable to cope with the scenario that unfolded in 2002 -06, where post garage's implosion, an entire section of the UKG massive silently migrated from grime to the existing global house continuum. It was only when DJs like Supa D and Marcus Nasty reclaimed UK ownership of a strand of the international house megacorp that it began to fit back into the continuum, incorporating influence from another of its rejected progeny, broken beat to form a near mirror image of grime. But overall a scenarios like this in 2002, where everything except the music stays nuum, displays the limitations of the continuum.
So despite funky's perfect credentials, Simon seems unsure of its place in the canon. The reasons for this are twofold: he seems to have misread the signs and again is holding the 2009 genre to account to '89 continuity pillars, perhaps for his own reasons.
"Funky has an overall deficit of rude + cheesy" he claims without investigating "Sirens" by Hard House Banton or "Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes" by KIG Family, both respectively rude and cheesy and two of the genre's biggest tracks. He also dismisses any dancehall influence in funky, despite the prevelance of skank tracks like the "Migrane Skank" that directly parody Jamaican dancehall dance routines.
So between dubstep's inclusion, wonky's exclusion and funky's limbo status, we find the central crisis that undermines the hardcore continuum in 2009: not that it has broken or is invalid, because it describes accurately in many cases the musical heart that beats in urban London and other UK urban multicultural centres. But its inflexibility in the face of edge cases and fragmentation, is causing it to be presented as fact but actually be used as a theory to make value judgments in order to preserve its own existence.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Rinse that nuum
The Hardcore Continuum? A discussion
Presented by the Centre for Cultural Studies Research, University of
East London In association with The Wire
Wednesday April 29th 2009 2:00pm-6:00pm
Simon Reynolds'' commentary on the ''hardcore continuum'' - the
mutating sequence of dancefloor music to have emerged from the
breakbeat hardcore matrix of the early 1990s - has recently generated intense debate in the musical blogosphere.
What is the value of this concept? Does it still usefully describe the
context from which dynamic new beat musics emerge? Can the conditions of creativity in the 1990s be replicated in the era of web 2.0? Should we even want them to be?
Speakers: Mark Fisher (K-Punk), Alex Williams (Splintering Bone
Ashes), Steve Goodman (Kode 9), Lisa Blanning (The Wire), Dan Hancox (Guardian, New Statesman), Kodwo Eshun (Author of More Brilliant than the Sun), Joe Muggs (Mixmag, The Wire), Martin Clark (Blackdown), Jeremy Gilbert (Co-author of Discographies)
Attendance is free but pre-registration is recommended. For info or to register contact firstname.lastname@example.com.
Location: UEL Docklands Campus (Cyprus DLR) Room wb.1.01
For full travel details see this or this.
Room wb.1.01is located on the first floor of the West Building (the
building to the right upon entering the main square from Cyprus DLR)
UPDATE: Oi Oi, Mr Reynolds has launched a pre-emptive strike!
Presented by the Centre for Cultural Studies Research, University of
East London In association with The Wire
Wednesday April 29th 2009 2:00pm-6:00pm
Simon Reynolds'' commentary on the ''hardcore continuum'' - the
mutating sequence of dancefloor music to have emerged from the
breakbeat hardcore matrix of the early 1990s - has recently generated intense debate in the musical blogosphere.
What is the value of this concept? Does it still usefully describe the
context from which dynamic new beat musics emerge? Can the conditions of creativity in the 1990s be replicated in the era of web 2.0? Should we even want them to be?
Speakers: Mark Fisher (K-Punk), Alex Williams (Splintering Bone
Ashes), Steve Goodman (Kode 9), Lisa Blanning (The Wire), Dan Hancox (Guardian, New Statesman), Kodwo Eshun (Author of More Brilliant than the Sun), Joe Muggs (Mixmag, The Wire), Martin Clark (Blackdown), Jeremy Gilbert (Co-author of Discographies)
Attendance is free but pre-registration is recommended. For info or to register contact firstname.lastname@example.com.
Location: UEL Docklands Campus (Cyprus DLR) Room wb.1.01
For full travel details see this or this.
Room wb.1.01is located on the first floor of the West Building (the
building to the right upon entering the main square from Cyprus DLR)
UPDATE: Oi Oi, Mr Reynolds has launched a pre-emptive strike!
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
The man who cycles through glass walls part 3
Last year I published two blog posts (here and here) about Nico Hogg's amazing documentation of London via his camera. I left some breathing space between those two and this, the final installment in the interview.
The five months between the first post and now hasn't dimmed my awe for his shots and the journey that leads him to them. In truth, as incredible images continue to appear on his Flickr stream, it makes me think this series might never end. But for now, here are the last shots and thoughts, grouped into loose themes.
B: "Bricked 309 bus, Bartlett Park." Can you tell us the full story here?
N: "We were heading off the Lansbury Estate, going past Bartlett Park when a couple of kids, maybe 11 or 12 years old eyed up the bus from a bush behind the road with excited expressions. One of them raised an arm and the next thing I did was turn my head away, because I knew what was coming next and I didn't fancy a face full of broken glass!! Thud, bang. One shattered window, kids running off.
The driver took the bus on a bit further to get out of the conflict zone and pulled up. One kid on the bus got a bit of glass stuck in his neck and his mum went ballistic, ranting that she knew "the little fuckers". Never had that happen to a bus I was on so close to town before, but terrorising buses is an art form on the outlying estates..."
B: "Stonebridge Park Station" - while this tube shot comes from one of the rougher parts of London, it reminds me what a communal and shared experience transport is in London. The tube seems to out-price some of the lowest earners, but the overland and busses still unite everyone...
N: "Definitely. Comparing the overland to the underground, there isn't the blanket presence of ticket gates and staff to make the railway feel like an artificial, protected safe zone, so to me it just an extension of the street. Anyone can walk onto a train, ticket or not if they really wanted to. The same interactions, some pleasant, some not, the same feelings of risk.
And a lot of the overland really does unite everyone – the North London Line going from wealthy Richmond to Harlesden, through Hampstead to Camden, Highbury, then Dalston, Hackney, Stratford. Halfway round London for a pound or two, all different people squashed up together in those run down old purple trains. Night buses are the same – half the cabs disappear, the tubes and trains stop, and everyone's thrown onto the party bus. I fell asleep on one on my way to Hammersmith one night, surrounded by people coming back from the clubs. When I woke up again I was a few minutes from Heathrow, and the bus was full of bleary-eyed workers heading in for a 5am shift at the Airport! At some point in that time I was asleep they were sharing the same space..."
B: "Ponders Endz." How do you feel about grime? Are you aware of the micro-local identity issues that litter the genre...
N: Mixed. I'm not sure how I regard it in my head. For me it's very fluid, hard to pin down, my mind is trying to whack a cloud of gnats with a tree branch. It's definitely a much leaner, angrier London within a London, but finding the outside borders is no more clear cut, even if it has a fairly well defined 'middle'.
That vitriolic element to grime mcing impresses me, it can be quite sharp, but I find it can get a bit blunt and clumsy too. Overall, I prefer an instrumental noise to a string of vocals. I see the appeal of it, there are shards of a dark and sometimes cruel sense of humour that comes through in a lot of grime music that I love.
That predates grime, but it has found a well-lubricated conduit through the lyrics for me. Geography is an important part of it, this and that endz trampling over one another, but there's the transcendence of geographical lines too. Linking that up to grime as a bigger thing has always been hard for me, but that's down to a lack of knowledge on my part. The tensions of both are born of the same parentage. As an expression, or really, manifestation of a certain kind of urban reality it does it's job pretty succinctly, but I think about what would happen if the messages started reinforcing themselves on a big scale, self perpetuating, growing bigger than they are and spilling into something else, somewhere else and I worry. Or something. Arrgh, too easy to talk out of my arse on this! It's a stereotypical concern about grime, I think, and an outsiders one, but it's one I find myself unable to shake it off."
[As a quick aside here. Last year I enjoyed a piece by Matt Shadetek on Cam'ron and the issue of "No Snitching." A friend commented about what an out of control beast hip hop, and some of the values it perpetuates, has become. Given the obvious parallels between grime and hip hop, perhaps this what happens with the "scale" Nico worries about.]
B: "Wednesday: Enfield Highway." More micro-local identity tagging.
but then there's the overlay with what looks like BNP sticker. Do you know who the unitedbritish.corp/ are?
N: "Anything I could tell you would be thanks to Google! That part of Enfield, running along the Hertford Road has always been a strongly working class white area, but it's gradually becoming more and more popular for ethnic minority groups moving out from inner London. There are a few large estates too, and that extra sense of territory that comes with them. I see that up there, increasingly, it's a developing thing. I also see a lot more of this expressed territorialisation further out than closer to town, in any area notorious or not, graffiti on estates and bus shelters. I wonder, with those three things coming together, how that will evolve."
B: "Sunday afternoon: The lift." Racism: it's about. Even between different ethnic minority groups. In your trips to take shots, do see it a lot?
N: "Yeah, for years, from school onwards. There's more inter-ethnic group tension here any white vs other. Sometimes it's within different parts of what would be considered from the outside to be the same ethnic group – big troubles within the Somali groups in Woolwich and Plumstead, traditionally the elders kept a lid on trouble but they're losing the battle, it's a community that has come close to the edge of tearing itself to shreds from the inside. But it's worth distinguishing between barefaced racism and another issue, the settled population vs new arrivals.
People from half the countries in the world live in Tottenham, many are well established in the area now, so it's worth separating the two. The Polish thing, as displayed in that pic – someone elses afterthought, is a new one. A lot of Poles have come to Tottenham recently, to private rented housing, rather than in the estates, and there is some insecurity in the area about that from the multicultural base of people already settled. It stays off the estates though, mainly... this is a bit of an exception."
B: "London Road, Mitcham." How did you get inside this building? Who and what lead you? How do you feel about tagging/graffiti?
N: "An open door in the night.. walking past this block of flats I saw a few bits of graffiti inside and wandered in to take a look, curious. The walls were saturated, completely, every surface, a spiralling hysteria. A clamour for the ownership of space gone insane. Nothing 'artistic' in the traditional sense, just tags tags tags tags tags on everything, saturation bombing.
"There's an identical block right next to it that has properly locked entrance doors, and that was totally untouched. Most of Mitcham is pretty tidy. This one block was like a pressure vent for some force, some statement. I hadn't seen anything like it outside of club toilets and squatted buildings, where that sort of thing is tolerated – or even welcomed - by the people who share the space. It felt like it belonged to a different era and a different place. Suburban South London meets 1980s New York. There's some principled part of me that says graffiti is wrong, an eyesore, report it, get rid of it – the "right thing". But really, I love it. I think you need to feel threatened by graffiti to want to get rid of it, but I see a game in it, laying a claim to a space lays down a gauntlet for that space to be challenged, questioned, and that's exciting to see."
B: "Nana's gone now." This one's twice as powerful when you add in the title. Do you know if Nana is gone? Who was she?
N: "I've got to admit to a bit of poetic licence here... I don't know. I just threw in the title!
B: "Avenue Road Estate" - can you elaborate onto the background of this one? do you get the sense of people reclaiming walls to be a kind of people's broadcast medium... Badman Broadcast Corp...
N: "This wasn't long after the stabbing of Paul Erhahon. Some say it was a gang thing, some say it wasn't, I don't know the background well enough to say. But there are two big estates in South Leytonstone, Cathall and this one, and there was politics between them. We found this one afternoon when I'd met up with a friend who has an interest in human geography (he's doing it as a degree now, and if he sees this he'll probably be laughing at my 'amateur' answers for months...), and I'd decided to show him around an estate near his house.
I think this was more about someone having a sick dig than some real statement of racial hatred. Test the water and gauge the reaction. Given the way that all the entrance doors were busted and the intercoms ripped out, anyone could have wandered in from off the estate and done this. The estate was a bit of a disaster zone at the time.
Definitely a broadcast medium! But not as evident as it could be... maybe people are just so hot on removing graffiti now, there's more of a focus on broadcasting the messages where it will definitely been seen and heard. There's the internet for that now."
B: "The lift lobby" - more graf. Does this say 'IRA flex?'
N: "This one was taken in my block of flats. There were a few 'IRA' tags around here at the time, but I think "IRA" and "flex" here were two separate tags. Really, I don't know where they came from... there was speculation at the time that a kid from one of the Irish families just off the estate was having a joke."
B: "We're in ur hoodz" - obviously "E8 bang bang" is a local tribal assertion of power via weaponry...
N: There was a bit of a fashion in statements like this, with "bang bang" tacked onto the end a year or two ago... haven't seen so much of it about lately, but it wasn't just E8 saying it.
B: "Stratford" - whereas most of your work seems more social, this seems to have a political bent...
N: "I don't see this sort of thing about that often.. but perhaps I just don't keep my eyes peeled so much for political statements. There are enough people out there already with cameras and a political mindset... it's heard, it's known about."
B: "Seven Sisters" - signs and signifiers, light and atmosphere...
N: "I've never understood the appeal of this one, but people do seem to like it. Sometimes I end up detached from the scene itself as I'm taking the photo, like in a trance. A sense that it'll be 'good' without consciously appreciating why, just recording it."
B: "No Spitting" - have you heard of the music genre dubstep? their top label, Tempa, their designer emailed me this once, as an idea for my own label artwork and obviously I used it recently on a Geeneus record. Then I was in a tower block lift with him a week or so after it came out, and there it was!!! Anyway, were you aware of the dual dictionary/grime meaning of the word 'spit'? and there it is, translated into two languages too...
N: "Haha, yeah I clocked that.. funnily enough, it seemed a very cliquey little block as well, there was a noticeboard behind me with a load of residents association stuff on it and warnings about not leaving the door open, letting 'strangers' into the block. "No spitting", none, of any kind. Not here. Dubstep, I got introduced to it last year through a mate showing me some of Burial's stuff, that was an eye-opener, a great sound... it's gone on from there, in fits and starts. Material things hold me back... my music playing capabilities are limited to an ipod and a stone age laptop. The sound of dubstep, really, deserves to be played through something that can bring out the richness, otherwise you're missing out on something. I'll have to sort that out, I'm deliberately holding back on it until then, odd as that might sound."
B: "EasyHajj!" I love this one, whereas most of your photos are more neutral, this is a rare entry of religion into your work. Do you think religion influences your subject matter much?
N: "I don't think it does! I had an almost completely unreligious upbringing.. the only times I've ever come into contact with it I've ended up pairing the circumstance up with either a social or political matter, religion playing second fiddle. I do feel like I'm missing something out by ignoring religion, as it is one of the most important things.. full stop."
B: Broken window theory, 2004 - do you buy/have you read any broken window theory ?
N: "I haven't read the literature, but I am aware of the overarching argument. I do think it sort of works as a concept, on the face of things, but (and wikipedia says the same here) how much of an effect it has on any bigger underlying problems is questionable to me. You don't have to have no smoke without fire, something can just be really bloody hot and you'll burn your fingers on it anyway. I'll have to read it someday."
B: "64-220 The Lintons (edit 2)" - So this was arson... can you elaborate?
N: "Nope...don't know anything about it!"
B: "64-220 The Lintons (edit 1)" - awaiting demolition... can you elaborate?
N: "This one's gone now. It used to loom over Barking, big style, shades of grey, a battleship on the skyline. Then the council came along in the 90s, painted it all these colours, put a dome on the roof and added a concierge at the bottom to ward off trouble. People still complained that it was an eyesore, then the council realised that for all the misguided beautification the building had undergone, things like 30 year old single-glazed windows 15 floors up and substandard insulation, things that actually mattered for basic quality of living there, were too expensive to bring up to date – why, I don't know.
Anyway, 8 years on they decided to pull it down instead and started moving the tenants out, but some of the leaseholders who had bought out their flats wouldn't leave; they wanted more money for their flats than the council was prepared to give. So the building stood there in this limbo state for over two years while the arguments dragged on, bit of arson here, few broken windows there, slowly deteriorating into oblivion."
B: "Ponders End" - what about London's ignored industrial wastelands? The Lee valley. The docks out east near the Blackwall tunnel. Wapping etc... these are ghostly in a different way to abandoned/deserted estates, they're places of huge steel dinosaurs and twisted metal scrap piles. Unguarded, uninhabited and unwanted. Does that interest you too, as a photographer?
N: "I've just never had that interest in photographing industrial decay that others have. Turning it the other way round, there are people who wonder where the worth of taking photos of empty estates lies. I find it hard to find a social significance in abandoned industry, that 'human' aspect is more easily sensed with residential areas.
Maybe I'd be singing a different tune if I lived in a town where the major employer was a factory and they'd shut down, some things need understanding first-hand."
B: "Luke House, Bigland Estate, E1" - this one is towering, literally. Do tower blocks 'work?'
N: "I don't know, it depends how you define 'work'. Maybe, yes, sometimes, but not often in their original form. Some councils have got innovative, putting students in them, putting old people in them. They work if you turn them into fortresses, with fences round the outside and someone behind a glass window controlling who comes in and out. If you've got a cliff face 20 storeys high filled with people that live there because they were given that flat and no other choice, it's not going to work well – but it won't fail either. If they came there out of choice, it would work."
B: "Patriotic" - often found near to the impoverished multicultural communities, is white British nationalism. Do you see much of this? Where?
N: "Quite a few places – the thing I notice is that it shows less the closer you get to Central London, it's most evident in poorer or traditionally working class white areas further out that are starting to react to the outward migration of different cultural/racial groups from further in. In inner London I think there's this element of acceptance, if not always readiness to intergrate, from the white groups in areas like Globe Town, the Isle of Dogs and Bermondsey.
"The tensions have played out and it's in the past now. It's mostly housing estates over there, and the queue to get a council property is massive – the chances of even getting onto the waiting list are seriously limited, so the breakdown of the population doesn't shift and change much as an area with mostly private renting and six-month tenancy terms. So in a way it's quite stable, the white population aren't about to lose their flats, there aren't sudden influxes and no need for reactions.
The flags hanging from tower blocks, it's more a defensive statement than an aggressive one, and it's pretty harmless. Further out, where minority groups have got onto the housing waiting lists and got places, and are setting up home where the property is cheaper, that's where the ugly aspect of nationalism rears its head in the same way it did in inner London 20 or 30 years ago. Round the Royal Docks, Erith, Dagenham, where this reaction is taking place and these fears are replaying themselves. I personally know some Albanians who have settled in Erith, and they paint a pretty ugly picture of prejudices acted out towards them."
B: "Bow, towards Mile End" - this photo demonstrates the uniqueness of your shots. Of all the millions of photos of London on Flickr, this is one of the very few of the legendary 'three flats' Crossways Estate. What was it like being there?
N: "Eerily quiet for a late afternoon. Hardly anyone was about at all. I spent half an hour inside this block taking shots in the stairwell and out of the windows, and I didn't hear a soul. I had expectations of the sort of thing I'd see – groups of youth milling around, there was none of it. I wonder if there was this air of fear in the empty space, like a western film with a showdown about to take place, but if was there was I missed it completely. It might well have been there. (btw: this was taken from inside one of the Crossways blocks, but the tower blocks are on the British Estate down the road)."
B: "Nicholl House, Woodberry Down" - more arson? Interesting comment you add to this shot: "Condemned? on levels, certainly I'd agree, but in my mind it's in the same sense that everyone in social (particularly council) housing in London is, because the gulf between that and anything better is unattainably wide and getting wider. For the households in this block, hopefully the new social housing that's to replace the estate provides some promise, even if it is some years away yet."
N: "I was having a bad day when I wrote that comment. I was going on the premise that a lot of council/social housing in London is in a bit of a mess at the moment – I sometimes forget that there are decent flats on good estates too! But the core point sticks – just as anyone who needs a council property should be able to have a decent one with enough rooms to avoid overcrowding, anyone should be able to afford to move into decent private housing as well. We're just a long, long way from that in London."
B: "High Rise Floodlighting" - these are in Luton (a satelite town outside the city), are they the ones you can see from the M1? They always look like Crossways...
N: "Yeah, that floodlighting... any block I see now with them reminds me of the Crossways. They make estates look like prison camps, spotlights waiting to catch someone or something out. There are two of these tower block estates you can see from the M1 as you go north through Luton. The first one is near the town centre, then the second one further out is Hockwell Ring, where these are."
B: "Newmill House, Bromley-by-Bow" - this is much more 'social/local/person' than the epic but distant tower block shots. The balconies on these council houses are classic design...
N: "Yeah, to me these older sorts of flats work best, as estates go. London County Council classic, red or yellow. The flats themselves are tiny a lot of the time, but in a way it forces there to be a sort of communal existence – everything spills over outside, washing hung up on the communal balconies, the younger kids play out in the squares and the aspiring street soldiers sit around in groups, but at ease. Even in the roughest, most deprived parts of London many of these blocks seem to get by without fortress tactics, security doors at the entrances.. you can just walk in and out. The estate, functioning as a whole, seems to manage the job by itself."
B: "Old Stonebridge" - this is creepy, desolate, it could be in a bombed out part of Sarajevo...
N: "This was a weird moment. I walked down into the entrance expecting the corridor opening to be boarded up, but it wasn't. I could just walk right in. It was almost pitch black, the lighting had been turned off. I wondered if anyone was still living in any of the flats in there, who they were, etc. It was taken a couple of days after Christmas. I can think of better places to spend the holidays."
B: "Tewkesbury Road alleyway" - do you think there is a beauty in decay? Or is the true value of this shot it's documentary qualities because while you can find beauty in this shot, the reality of an existence in an alley's like this is less romantic.
N: "They two are separate things, but one almost always seems to come with the other. You document to record, to get a idea or sense of something, and that sense of something is impossible to separate from the decay. It can be reality, and beauty too."
B: "Seven Sisters Road" - this one is pure atmosphere...
N: "There's this stereotypical image of a foggy London. That stark shape of the houses of parliament in the fog in old photos, that kind of thing. But it really isn't that common, not nowadays anyway. I like to try and use it when I can, because it does change everything, even in a familiar scene."
B: Can you tell me about these (first, second) panoramas...
N: "Haha, "welcome to my world!". I got up on the roof one evening and did this; it's pretty much the same view as from various windows inside my flat, which is partly why I did it. The untagged one is for me as a sort of record, the one with the labels on.. I don't know, a chance for other people to see how I relate – strictly geographically, was the theory – to the areas I can see around me.
It's hard to see this block I'm standing on from many of those places, even the high ones like Ally Pally and I was very aware of that at the time I took this. Maybe I was trying to say, 'I can see you out there, but you can't see us here – but we are here!' I do think Tottenham gets overlooked in many ways, and when it is noticed it's with a roll of the eyes – sometimes justified, sometimes not. But it isn't such a bad sort of place, really. And it is home to me, so I'm prepared to defend it in my own way."
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
The funk phenomenon
"It has already been recognised that the individuals behind this music wouldn't meet the requirements of entry at an event aimed at the mature raver due to age, and these tracks, even the ones receiving appeal from the public, are not favoured by those who would.
This therefore means that the age group of producer and listeners of the 'Nursery Grime' category fit into same demographic. However this isn't a demographic on a low scale of overall capacity within the scene. So there has become a divide.
Those that appreciate the enjoyment found within the fun and games of the music, and those that feel that an environment that serves alcohol in freefall is not the correct place to relive childhood games and rhymes."
-- Makeda Wilson, Itsalot Mag
Funky seems to be at the same time both exploding and tearing itself apart, whether it's DJs battling for the ownership of certain sounds, key players renaming offshots or what kind of MC tracks are acceptable. The sheer amount of activity can be overwhelming, so I caught up with blogger Queen of Sheba, writer for Itsalot mag, the digital Deuce mag for the funky generation.
Blackdown: There seems to be a big internal battle going on right now for what "house and funky" is or isn't, do it feel like that to you? Who to your mind, are the key players involved right now?
Queen of Sheba: It definitely is like that at the moment. It's a very political subject that many members of the scene are voicing their opinions on. Marcus Nasty and Tippa (from Circle) are being pinpointed at the moment, but that's because some fast person posted Marcus's Facebook status in a forum, but it's actually been a major topic ever since Heads Shoulders Knees & Toes [HSK&T] first unearthed on the circuit. Everyone has an opinion when it comes to one to one conversation, but not everybody can be asked to get involved in the public politics.For this reason, to me, there are no key players involved. What is said publicly by one may be a repeat of what another said behind closed doors.
B: For people that don't know, can you try and describe the main different types of styles in house and funky right now and why some of them are so controvertial?
QoS: WOW! The different styles.... the genre is so diverse! We have vocal which is more towards soulful, tribal, but there's a darker kind of tribal which is deeper and darker. Kinda like Grimey. There's broken, afrobeat and we also have MC tracks and skank tracks. The MC and skank tracks are the ones that are most controversial. MC tracks have been around for a while with Versatile's funky anthem getting airplay on the major music channels and there was also a track made by Dubplate Wonder a while back that not many people seem to know about but the more controversial ones are the recent ones.
The controversy mainly comes from the fact that the tribal and broken instrumental tracks are being taken by budding MCs who are then applying bars to them and then passing them off as their own. Some of the tracks being taken haven't even been able to get their own sufficient amount of airplay so the producer is getting cut out of the deal. What makes it worse is the producer hasn't been approached for consent first so it's causing conflict.
B: I see what you mean about tracks being vocalled without permission but it also seems to me that there's a fear within house and funky that MCs, especially grime MCs, might "take over" funky, kinda like they did to UK garage. Do you think people in funky are concerned about this and if so, why?
QoS: For some it may be a concern, but for me personally I think it's a good thing as it can help to push the sound. I don't really think people fear it taking over, I think their more upset about people jumping into Funky to get a quick dollar or buck as opposed to those who have been there from the beginning cultivating the sound to what it is today. There are a lot of new faces in Funky that are obviously not here for passion. That goes further than the MCs though and spreads into DJs and club promoters. There are a lot of people abusing the genre in hope of personal gain and recognition. Nah I wouldn't call it fear at all, I would more call it and anger due to lack of authenticity. That's something I can identify, emphasise and agree with.
B: OK. I see that and I can understand the position of the heads who have built funky up only for it to get popular but to me part of the appeal of funky to its core fans was that it wasnt grime ie obsessed by violence, dominated by MCs and better to watch than to dress up and dance to. So it seemed logical that they might be worried about an influx of grime youngers...
QoS: Yeah I get you. Most of the new youngsters who are coming over from grime are into these skank tracks though, which I guess just adds to more conflict. The new MCs are irritating the new ones who are more about one liners or hooks and the new ravers are irritating the old ones who aren't into getting instructions about how to dance to a particular track at a given time. The funny thing though is the new ravers think Funky is all about dances, but that's something more associated to Bashment rather than Grime so although the new MCs are making a transition from Grime to Funky, the followers aren't realising that the trend has really been birthed from one person's or group's desired trademark within the Funky circuit. A lot of people within the original UK Funky circuit came from Grime, that isn't what created this influx. When KIG Family made HSK&T, that was their rendition within the genre. Because it was so simple, it made a lot of people think they could do the same. If that track wasn't signed within a major bidding war of record labels, I don't think half of the people that have been turned on by funky in the last 6 months would've been interested. But the Bashment dance track thing was due to be there trend, if they hadn't publicised that on national commercial radio, we'd probably still be waiting on the second or third of its kind.
B: These kinds of generational conflicts remind me of UKG garage all over again. Old school garage DJs storming out of photoshoots because they dont like cheap novelty tracks like "I Don't Smoke Da Reefah". Is there a tension between the youngers and olders right now, and would you say that before the HSK&T, funky was generally an older scene rather than full of youngers?
QoS: Nah there's not any tension at all. Mainly because the older club promoters cater for the older ravers, and the younger promoters who tend to be university students cater for ravers their age. The commercial events however is where you find an amalgamation of the ages, new ravers and old so there is always an event or two to provide for whatever it is your preference.
Because of that there isn't a need for any hostility. Everyone gets on with their own. This has been the case from before HSK&T and the influx that has followed hasn't been confined to the younger generation either. So I think that would be an unfair judgement if I'm honest.
B: Do you ever think that there's a risk that the vocal funky tunes - whether novelty tunes or grime MCs over funky instrumentals - could begin to be more about something you listen to with MCs on and less something you dance to?
QoS: I don't think that is possible within the more mature side of the scene as that side of things hasn't changed. The host still perform the same without an overload of bars so it's the same as always. The only difference in those areas is that they no longer willing to address the music as funky. The younger and more commercial areas of the scene are in danger of heading that way though without a doubt. It's already happening in some areas.
B: There's various "Nursery Grime" tracks like "Heads, Shoulders Knees and Toes" and "Ring-A-Rosy" - all using songs from the playground. Plus you mentioned there's funky versions of kids classics "I Spy" and "Wheels on the Bus." With the nursery rhyme tunes, it seems uncanny to me that there's these fun MC tunes in funky, whereas grime is trying so hard to be road, raw and aggressive, it rarely lets itself be funny or silly. Do you think its possible that there's a link between MCs in one scene being serious and the other being fun?
QoS: I don't know if there is any element of truth in those tracks being around. I haven't researched it. A lot of people are making jokes about these tracks so it's possible to be another joke. The fact that its believed shows how much people aren't taking these tracks seriously though. If MCs are using Grime to be serious and Funky to be silly it really just highlights that the artists who are producing the music are as serious about the music as the people who are listening to it. Another reason why the connoisseurs aren't willing to take it on as they on the other hand are very passionate about their music and the scene as a whole.
B: Lemme plays devil's advocate here: if funky goes back towards house, what is it that makes it unique? London has a long history of taking sounds and making it ours (jungle, grime, dubstep, funky), but if funky DJs go back to playing mainstream house, will they truly be able to make their mark in that long-established scene?
QoS: I don't think it means they'll revert back to mainstream only. There are still 'Funky' producers making music ie Fuzzy Logik, D-Malice, Roska, MA-1 to name a few. They will just stop using the name Funky to disassociate themselves from the current trend that is getting into the mainstream. The skank/MC tracks are pushing the Funky name into the commercial market, but these people aren't willing to sell their souls to the devil in order to achieve fame. As fame and success are different things. So it will just get referred to as UK House, as these people will tell you that House is the sound they are trying to achieve within their production above anything else. On the other hand, these tracks are getting called 'Skank' music too, so there may not be a need for name filtering after all. Who knows?
B: What do you think about the terms "dubbage" and "tribal" and do you think they are a clear sounds or offshoots that are developing?
QoS: Dubbage, Tribal..... I don't really want to comment on either as I'm not deep within either but they are developing so things are still to be seen. I'd personally class them as the same thing though, but really I think Dubbage is a UK spin off of Deep House as Funky is a spin off from Soulful House. If you get what I'm saying?
B: You said on Dissensus...
"What I hate about [funky tunes with MCs] is that they're flung together with no form of foresight. When I first got into the genre in mid 05 this would've never been accepted. The genre's effect in Aiya Napa last year has led to this huge change over of artists and listeners so many of the new influx are unaware what this genre is really about."
B: Could you elaborate on what you feel the genre is truly about?
QoS: Funky to me is our adaptation of the more recognised House producers such as Karizma, Kerri Chandler, Dennis Ferrer and an amalgamation of all their different sounds. However as there is also influence from Garage and Grime due to the individual backrounds the overall sound is very diverse. However, you'll find none of these, including Garage where there was MC tracks, included any dances. Which is why Funky Anthem is as acceptable in Funky as Do You Really Like it and Good Rhymes was in Garage. The songs are about the vybe so everybody relates to them.
Queen of Sheba's top 5 tracks
1. Mystery ft Miss Bree – Worth Much More
2. MA-1 - Waterfalls
3. Darkus Beat Project (Roska Remix) - Promise
4. Fuzzy Logik ft Egypt – In the Morning
5. Geeneus ft Katy B – As I
· Queen of Sheba's blog is here. You can read or download Itsalot Magazine here. Check the Itsalot Magazine podcasts here.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Dusk + Blackdown archive page launched
Something I've been meaning to do for a while is this: an archive page for all our old mixes.
Most of them are Rinse shows that are no longer hosted by Rinse but I've included the two older Keysound Radio mixes and a little exclusive to launch the page. Out to the reader of this blog who sent me the only archive we have of our old Groovetech show.
Dusk and I took over the Dubplate.net show on now-defunct internet station Groovetech when 1Xtra was founded and recruited Ghost's Jayda Flex, which dates it to around August 2002. This show comes from November 2002 but ironically I'm not there as I was doing shift work for 1Xtra. So Dusk runs the show solo for nearly three hours. Enjoy...
Dubplate.net Show on Groovetech Nov 1st 2002
· Download it here.
· Download all our old Rinse mixes here.
PS if you have any more of our Groovetech shows, please can you send them over?
Monday, April 13, 2009
DVA ft Badness, Riko, Flowdan and Killa P Bullet A'Go Fly
LDN010 DVA ft Badness, Riko, Flowdan and Killa P Bullet A'Go Fly (Original and Dusk + Blackdown remix). Forthcoming on Keysound Recordings...
Monday, April 06, 2009
Forward forever
It was 24 hours ago but I'm still hyped and energised by an amazing Forward>> last night. It was so great to see El-B finally getting his props; so nuts to play alongside him - he was the man that made me want to produce. And while he's a bit busy these days, dialog with Kode9 have been a massive influence over this decade, so it was great to warm up for his mix of funky and, well, wot do u call it?
(Out to the guy shouting "play some dubstep" at Kode. Are you sure you really want to bait Mr Contrary? Foolish behaviour: don't make him draw for the Sun Ra. Update - fuck, turns out it was Corpsey, ah well at least we know it came from one of us.)
I'm so happy Forward>> is still the force it is and - thanks to Soulja - willing to take risks and lead rather than follow, so it was nuts to see a decendent of the mighty Alice Coltrane take to the decks. Yeah Kode's mate Mr Flying Lotus did an impromptu set, news of which broke on Sunday afternoon, only adding to the sense of anticipation of the evening. With Mr Lotus in the house, I love how the dots can be joined - speaking of which, it was nuts to see not just Benji B but the Theo fuckin' Parrish up in Forward, chilling by the stairs where Slimzee used to hang, back in the day. Speaking of a Rinse don, large bits of the night went out live on London's leading, look out for audio.
In retrospect our set seemed fun, though any DJ who says it isn't hyper intense being up there must be lying to you. But our rollage and 2step009 seemed to work, so I want to shout all the producers who made it possible: Kowton/Narcossist, Grievous Angel, Silkie, Sbtrkt, Burial and the swing don himself, Sully. Let's roll.
Friday, April 03, 2009
Pitchfork: back!
My Pitchfork Column returns post-site redesign, with a guest spot from Logan Sama, a third way for funky ("dubbage") and an interview with Swamp 81's Kryptic Minds and Loefah.
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As we promised, here is the second instalment of the presentation of Tatiana's doll house. In this post we visit the living room. I remind you that, as mentioned in the previous installment (dining room) the whole house will be made in black and white.
The room is another box made from double corrugated cardboard. Tatiana used oversize coverstock for walls and floor. The curtains are dinner napkins - black ones are faux dupioni silk, white is polyester. The console table and the TV bench are made from another one of the frames she got from a clearance sale. The back panel behind the TV was cut out from cardstock sides of the box that came with the Fashion Royalty bed (inspired by a visit to local IKEA store). Tatiana replaced the Barbie sticker on the TV screen with a cutout from the card that came with the registration gift at the Chicago Fashion Royalty convention. It may have to be replaced with a plain black cardstock later, but for now she likes how her dolls are watching Convention News!
The sofa and chairs are jewelry boxes. The black coffee table is from the Fashion Royalty Loft collection; the accessories on top of it were included: the shaker, glasses and champagne bottle in the bucket. The white carpet is just a piece of craft felt: Tatiana used two sheets for thickness. The two small side tables are acrylic risers from re-ment bakery cases, turned on a side with tops glued to them. Their sides, originally slightly sloped, became horizontal under the weight of the tops and lamps. The black mirrored tabletops are from a friend of Tatiana's - she is not sure what they are.
The lamp shades, candles, telephones, vases, electronics and jewellery box come from various Mattel play sets. Tatiana repainted the vases, jewelry box and statuette, which is an Esmeralda figurine from kids candy. The lamp posts are from the Gloria playset. A piece of thin wooden rod and a clear bead were used to attach them to the lamp shades. She purchased inexpensive self-adhesive mosaic stones from the scrap booking section and placed them adhesive side up under the back legs of the sofa and chairs to level them up.
Tatiana says she had fun making this diorama and likes that her dolls finally have a modern living room; she was meaning to make this one for years. They sure look great sitting in there.
All photographs courtesy of Tatiana.


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जब जब फूल खिले
Sometimes a film can leave the thinking and feeling portions of my brain disaligned. Such films are hard to write about. Jab jab phool khile ("whenever flowers may bloom") is one such, with an anti-modernity and possibly anti-feminist message that is hard for me to swallow. And yet I loved the film for its emotion and tenderness, and I'm inclined to give it a pass for any moral aspects that don't set right with me.
Rita (Nanda), having finished her studies in America, ventures to Kashmir for a little vacation time, and rents a houseboat from a simple local boy named Raja (Shashi Kapoor). Raja is smitten instantly, and eventually a mutual affection develops. Rita's vacation eventually ends, but she returns the following summer, this time in the company of the irritating Kishore (Jatin Khanna), the self-important dandy Rita's father wants her to marry. After a showdown with Kishore, Raja declares his love, and travels to the city to present himself to Rita's family. Rita dresses him in western finery and instructs him in some of her family's modern customs, but when Rita's father sets him up for an embarrassing evening, Raja realizes that he cannot adjust to Rita's world. It's up to Rita to figure out a way to keep their relationship alive.
Jab jab phool khile pits the emancipated go-go 60s against good old fashioned country conservatism, and it's in no way a fair fight. On the side of traditionalism we have the charming Raja, earnest, innocent, and handsome. He looks after his pre-teen younger sister and manages their houseboat rental business with an ethic of hardworking honesty; he's not even comfortable accepting tips. Meanwhile, we are shown very little of value in modernity and Westernization. Rita may be educated, but she's vapid and selfish. It's not Raja the country rube who is a boor, it's Rita, who abuses servants and whines petulantly each time she doesn't get her way. Also on the side of modernity is the sniveling, entitled Kishore, not to mention Rita's wealthy scheming father, who is not satisfied merely to refuse to his daughter to Raja but must also put the rustic in his place. The deck is stacked so heavily in favor of Raja's simple country living that there's no question which kind of life the film is advocating. In one song, expressing his discomfort with the modern trappings, he even makes an explicit contrast between Rita's milieu and what is properly Indian life, asking "kaise bhuul jaaun ki main huun hindustani" - how can I forget that I am Indian?
It's statements like that which make it hard for me to judge the apparently anti-modern, anti-feminist sentiments of the movie. How can I forget that I am not Indian? In the end, it's not my place to declare that this cautionary tale is too cautionary. Rita's over-accessorized, Audrey Hepburnized 1960s splendor is appealing, but I don't know what the threat of western homogenization really looked like from the perspective of this film's original, intended audience. And I don't think the film is necessarily saying that all Westernization or modernization is bad, just the all-or-nothing, un-nuanced brand adopted by Rita and her orbit.
In real life, if a relationship between a "sophisticate" like Rita and a "bumpkin" like Raja were to have a ghost's chance of success, a great deal of compromise on both sides would be required. It's certainly problematic and perhaps a little dissatisfying that in the end of Jab jab phool khile, it's Rita who makes all the sacrifices. (Beth has more about this.) And yet somehow in the film's own narrative context it makes perfect sense. Both Raja and Rita are extremely naive and narrow-minded; neither one of them is particularly good at seeing the perspective of the other. But at least Raja has an excuse for his simplicity; in Rita, supposedly so worldly and educated, the presumption is less forgivable. And Raja does try to join Rita in her world, even though he discovers that it doesn't suit him. Of the two, he seems to be the one who has tried harder, done all the work, and done all the thinking for the both of them. It seems only just that in the end he gets all the reward.
Jab jab phool khile is quite clearly the antecedent of the 90s hit Raja Hindustani, but it is by far the better and more delicate movie, without the masala excess of the more recent film. The greatest strength of Jab jab phool khile is this: Shashi Kapoor is simply a superb actor. He registers Raja's emotional transitions in the subtlest changes in his face - from wide open, boyish innocence to wounded mistrust to anger. The scene in which he chastises Rita after his humiliation in the company of Rita's urbane family and friends is among the most moving in the film - the most explicitly anti-modern, anti-western views are given voice here - and Shashi delivers it perfectly, wringing tears from me even as I squirmed at his sentiment. In the film's songs he is a bit raw and unformed; having not yet developed his own style, he channels his brothers in turn, now Raj's smooth sophistication, now Shammi's wild gyration. In the dramatic scenes, though, he is fully in his own element, one of the finest actors there is. Jab jab phool khile is a Shashi fan's film - he looks beautiful and does all the emotional heavy lifting - and it's as a Shashi fan that I most enjoyed it.


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International Relations at the College of William and Mary is a thriving program that integrates teaching, research, study abroad, foreign language, and close interaction among students and faculty from different disciplines.
The program promotes the systematic study of political, economic, and historic relations among states and other actors in the international system. Students and faculty explore the interactions among states, markets, and non-state actors (such as international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, multinational corporations, and terrorist networks).


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The Kragenbrink is a high-end, high-performance acoustic for serious fingerstyle players
Download Example 1 Standard | |
Download Example 2 DADGAD | |
Download Example 3 DADGAD Capo at 5th | |
Download Example 4 CGDGBD |
Meet the Fingerstylist
This is a very simple but extremely elegant guitar. Kragenbrink let the woods speak here, visually as well as audibly. The top is Adirondack spruce, the back is a purplish dark Indian rosewood, and the five-piece neck is mahogany with two accent strips of Brazilian rosewood. Bridge, fretboard and headstock overlay are also Brazilian, as are the rich dark bindings. The soundhole is circled by one stunningly simple piece of Indian rosewood, and the perflings are black/white/rosewood/white/black. There is no backstrip, and the joint is so clean you can barely see it. The finish is polyurethane, glossy and glassy smooth. Altogether, it's simply gorgeous.
The fretboard is 1-3/4" at the nut and 2-1/4" at the saddle, which is not an unusual width, but the flatness and thinness of the neck make it seem wider. It plays like buttah, and that's a tall order for an acoustic. The body is 19-3/4" long and 15-1/4" across the lower bout, with a nice slope from 3-1/2" at the neck to 4-5/8" at the butt. The Gotoh 510 "Contour" tuners are a lovely complement, and feel solid as a rock. All Kragenbrink guitars ship in climate controlled, premium Ameritage hardshell cases, which are quite attractive and sturdy, but heavy.
Lance Kragenbrink has been building guitars in his one-man shop since 2000, producing six to eight guitars a year, and he currently has a two- to three-year backlog. He has several models, small bodies and dreadnaughts, along with a 12-string and a short-scale guitar. He worked hard to develop his signature sound, which he describes as an even balance that is rich and powerful and highly sensitive. I can't find a single word to argue with in that description. He also says he prefers understated appointments that feel and look organic, and again, all I can say is "amen."
One of the first things I did was to take the guitar to visit my local Guitar Mafia. Hearing it when it's on your own lap is one thing, but hearing it played by someone else whose playing you've heard most of your life is another. This guitar has an almost ethereal tone, but at the same time it's incredibly powerful. Each guitarist brought out some different properties. In Steve Armstrong's hands I noticed incredible punch and snap, but when Pat Smith picked it up it was the sustain and brilliance that really came through. Michael Belmont brought out a funky-cool undertone that still had a belllike purity. I don't think this is a sign of a guitar with multiple personalities; this guitar simply gives you tremendous tone however you approach it. Some really appreciated the wide fretboard while others found it too much of an adjustment. The body shape and size were universally popular.
Ever curious, Armstrong reached inside the soundhole to see what he could detect in the bracing. He thought, from what he could feel, that Kragenbrink hybridized X and classical-style bracings. I asked Lance about that, and he told me that his ideas about bracing come from his own intuition and experience. "A guitar is a guitar," he said. "If you build something that looks like one, it'll probably sound like one. So what you're left with to distinguish your guitars from the rest are playability and sound; your own personal sound, which comes in a large part from the way you voice and brace the top." His bracing is similar to Martin bracing, but he has a few wrinkles of his own. "I have specific places that I put braces on my guitars," he said, "and I spend a lot of time flexing and bending the top. There's a certain feel I'm going for; a certain flexibility. Where I place the tone bars depends on the flexibility of the top, and I might have to take quite a bit off a brace to allow the top to vibrate the way I want it to, to get my sound." Every piece of wood is different, so Kragenbrink says the bracing is a little different for each guitar.
Turn Those Fingers Loose!
Back home again, I decided to spend a little time recording right away, because I suspected this guitar would be an amazing studio instrument with its brilliant highs and beautifully supported lows. I was right. It shimmers with warmth, and is capable of both thunder and lightning. Not many guitars will give you both. It records very purely, without any weird mid-rangey artifacts or bass overdrive, even dropped into a C tuning.
On the couch for an evening, it was a perfectly delightful companion. The body shape is quite comfortable to hold for long periods of time, and the wide fretboard and thin neck let me play without fatigue. Some of the DADGAD stretches require a pretty big finger spread, and they were a bit of a challenge. Fortunately, hands adjust pretty quickly to new territories.
I couldn't resist a little flatpickin' just to see what this baby would do. For the loose, Celtic-style big chords with lots of moving notes between, it's lovely. However, for serious fiddle tune or cross-pickin', that wide fretboard and string spacing is not ideal. A flatpickin' guitar is not what this axe is trying to be, so no harm, no foul. It is, however, one of the best damn fingerstyle guitars these fingers have ever been on, and that's just fine.
Standard tuning is great on this guitar, which is no surprise, but when you drop it into altered tunings it simply comes alive. Wide fretboards encourage a serious fingerstylist to be more accurate and aggressive, to nail the hammer-ons with both hands, to push beyond how we normally play just because we can. Big, booming bassy chords sustained beautifully under melodic lines, and harmonics rang nearly forever, letting me play melody over the top and lose only the strings I touched. Slides were great, and I could still hear the original note ringing clearly when I slid to another, especially if I dug in a little bit on the attack. It takes a truly remarkable instrument to do all of that without overwhelming the ears with unfriendly overtones, so well done.
The Final Mojo
The joy of playing a top-notch, truly exceptional instrument cannot be compared to much of anything else, but if you're reading PG you probably know that. This is one of those guitars that can provide a peak experience for a player, where time doesn't mean anything and the world drops away. In the studio, this could become a go-to axe that could complement any recording. If you're a serious fingerstyle player, this could be your Holy Grail.
Buy if...
you're looking for a monster fingerstyle guitar that will allow you to soar.
Skip if...
you'd rather be flatpickin' or if you aren't ready for a guitar this advanced.
MSRP $5650 - Kragenbrink Guitars - kragenbrinkguitars.com |


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I love narrating audiobooks, because it gives me a rare opportunity to combine my love of reading with my love of performing into something that hopefully entertains people, and gets the Bursar at Ryan's college off my back for another month.
I did a few when I was much younger (Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, and and Why I Left Harry's All-Night Hamburgers), then nothing for about ten years, when I did an audio version of Just A Geek, and then The Happiest Days of Our Lives. I guess someone liked the stuff I'd done recently, because I was invited to perform a story in METAtropolis: Cascadia, and that led to doing a bunch of books for Scalzi, which eventually led to the point of this post: Ernie Cline's upcoming book, Ready Player One.
I first discovered Ernie's work about ten years ago, when I heard him performing his sensational spoken word piece When I Was A Kid. I loved it so much, I submitted it to Fark, where it was greenlit, resulting in fives of album sales for Ernie (You're welcome, Ernie).
Years went by. Ernie wrote Fanboys. I wrote some books, too. Then, on a magical, unicorn-filled day earlier this year, my manager called and said I'd been asked to perform a new book called Ready Player One, by an author named Ernest Cline. I didn't even need to know what it was about; I knew it would be rad because Ernie wrote it, so I said yes right away. I had an incredibly good time reading it, marvelling every day that I was getting paid to read and perform a book that I loved. I counted down the days until August 16th, because that's when it would finally be released.
Knock Knock, Motherfucker: tomorrow's August 16th, and Ready Player One comes out in both print and audio editions. You can hear a sample of me doing my thing right now, though, because that's how we do things around here.
Ready Player One was in the New York Times this weekend, and I urge anyone who is on the fence about the book to go read it. Here, I'll make it easy and all linky.
Seriously? You're still here? Fine. Here's a taste:
With its Pac-Man-style cover graphics and vintage Atari mind-set "Ready Player One" certainly looks like a genre item. But Mr. Cline is able to incorporate his favorite toys and games into a perfectly accessible narrative. He sets it in 2044, when there aren't many original Duran Duran fans still afoot, and most students of 1980s trivia are zealous kids. They are interested in that time period because a billionaire inventor, James Halliday, died and left behind a mischievous legacy. Whoever first cracks Halliday's series of '80s-related riddles, clues and puzzles that are included in a film called "Anorak's Invitation" will inherit his fortune.
The world Ernie created for Ready Player One will blow your mind, and alternately make you wish you could live there, while being really glad that you don't. You'll want to meet the characters, and challenge them to a game of Galaxian (though they'll probably kick your ass. Damn kids in the future, I swear to god.)
It's already been bought by Warner Brothers, and will eventually be a film. I'm doing my best to call dibs on playing Halliday, but even if that doesn't work out, at least I got to play Wade in the audio version. Which you should totally go buy, because it is awesome.


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Wyeth Corporation comes to the aid of UH Hilo's College of Pharmacy
August 28, 2009
The University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo College of Pharmacy will soon install a major instrument that will help further research at the University, thanks to a gift from the Wyeth Corporation.
The Bruker-Biospin Avance DRX 400 is a 400-megahertz nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer (NMR) valued at a quarter million dollars, which will be used to identify the structures of unknown chemicals including potential new drugs. The equipment is being configured at the new laboratory space off Stainback Highway currently occupied by Pharmacy until the growing College has a permanent home.
"The gift of the NMR from Wyeth removes a major impediment to scientific research that must compete on a national or international scale," said Dr. Robert P. Borris, associate dean for research at the College of Pharmacy. "Not having this kind of equipment tells federal funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation that we don't have the facilities in which to do cutting edge research. Having the NMR at UH Hilo means we won't have to travel to Oʻahu or to the mainland to conduct our work. We're very grateful to Wyeth for helping us to establish a cutting-edge scientific base for students at UH Hilo."
Pharmacy collaborates with faculty in chemistry, biology and biochemistry, and hopes to give ample access to anyone at UH Hilo in need of this fundamental tool for analytical chemistry, Borris said. Many of the faculty have used similar equipment, but will have to complete one or two days of training specific to this particular instrument.
The NMR uses the behavior of atoms in a strong magnetic field to help identify the structure of chemicals, both alone and in mixtures. Research that would require a NMR might ultimately result in the discovery of a new drug, which may have been synthesized in the laboratory or isolated from some natural product.
Dr. Guy T. Carter, assistant vice president of chemical technologies at Wyeth Research's Chemical & Screening Sciences, said that Wyeth tries to place retired equipment that is still functional with an academic research group that will derive the greatest benefit. The drug company, based in New York, typically chooses institutions that are in close proximity to one of their sites, such as Columbia University in Manhattan and Temple University in Philadelphia. Carter said he was able to direct the NMR to UH Hilo through personal communications with Borris.
"I find it personally gratifying that the instrument will enable UH Hilo students to have access to high quality NMR data for their studies," Carter said. "I am particularly hopeful that the NMR will be valuable in advancing research in natural products drug discovery, which we are passionate about at Wyeth."
The gift is a signal of support from the pharmaceutical industry for the growing College of Pharmacy, said Dean John M. Pezzuto.
"We are competing for the same funding that universities everywhere need, so it's absolutely critical that we can rely on the pharmaceutical industry," Pezzuto said. "Support from Wyeth Research is reassuring because it shows we're headed in the right direction. We are determined to continue on our planned path to improve healthcare in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific region."
See more news from 2009.


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2012 RotoRob NFL Draft Kit: Running Back Rankings
If Run DMC can stay healthy, he could explode this year.
By Herija Green, Buck Davidson and RotoRob
With the season beginning this week, the 2012 RotoRob NFL Draft Kit wraps up today with another cheat sheet.
Statements that the NFL has become a passing league may be abundant and overly cliche, but they also happen to be true. Add to that the proliferation of running back by committee, frequency of injury, and number of times a guy comes from out of nowhere to rush for 100 yards in a game only to disappear into statistical oblivion just as quickly and you've got a severely depressed fantasy RB market.
Fear not, though, my friends. We here at RotoRob.com have ventured into this pit of despair, sorted through the riff raff and emerged holding two stone tables that contain 45 names. Behold, the Fantasy gospel…
So while you await Adrian Peterson's Week One status, let's review the top running backs for 2012.
1. Arian Foster, Houston Texans
2. Ray Rice, Baltimore Ravens
3. LeSean McCoy, Philadelphia Eagles
4. Maurice Jones-Drew, Jacksonville Jaguars
5. Chris Johnson, Tennessee Titans
6. Marshawn Lynch, Seattle Seahawks
7. Darren McFadden, Oakland Raiders
8. Matt Forte, Chicago Bears
9. DeMarco Murray, Dallas Cowboys
10. Ryan Mathews, San Diego Chargers
11. Adrian Peterson, Minnesota Vikings
12. Michael Turner, Atlanta Falcons
13. Steven Jackson, St. Louis Rams
14. Jamaal Charles, Kansas City Chiefs
15. Trent Richardson, Cleveland Browns
16. Frank Gore, San Francisco 49ers
17. Ahmad Bradshaw, New York Giants
18. Shonn Greene, New York Jets
19. Roy Helu, Washington Redskins
20. Fred Jackson, Buffalo Bills
21. Willis McGahee, Denver Broncos
22. Darren Sproles, New Orleans Saints
23. Jonathan Stewart, Carolina Panthers
24. Reggie Bush, Miami Dolphins
25. BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Cincinnati Bengals
26. Beanie Wells, Arizona Cardinals
27. Mark Ingram, New Orleans Saints
28. Stevan Ridley, New England Patriots
29. Doug Martin, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
30. Cedric Benson, Green Bay Packers
31. C.J. Spiller, Buffalo Bills
32. Isaac Redman, Pittsburgh Steelers
33. Toby Gerhart, Minnesota Vikings
34. DeAngelo Williams, Carolina Panthers
35. Michael Bush, Chicago Bears
36. Peyton Hillis, Kansas City Chiefs
37. Ben Tate, Houston Texans
38. David Wilson, New York Giants
39. Donald Brown, Indianapolis Colts
40. Daniel Thomas, Miami Dolphins
41. Rashard Mendenhall, Pittsburgh Steelers
42. Mikel LeShoure, Detroit Lions
43. Ryan Williams, Arizona Cardinals
44. James Starks, Green Bay Packers
45. LeGarrette Blount, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Despite logging just 10 carries prior to Week Four and sitting out Week 17, Foster still compiled 1,841 total yards and a dozen touchdowns last season. With 119 receptions the past two years he's a true dual threat out of the backfield… and at age 26 he should be entering his prime. Even with a capable backup (Ben Tate) and a solid passing game, Foster rates as our top option.
While he may lack Foster's upside potential, Rice stands as the most consistent and reliable of the Fantasy backs. He has appeared in all 48 games (45 starts) the past three years, averaged 4.6 yards per carry as a primary option and piled up 217 receptions. The only thing lacking was red-zone action, but that changed last year when Rice scored 15 times, including 12 on the ground. He's a bona fide stud.
McCoy was somewhat overlooked coming off a 1,672-yard performance in 2010. Now that he scored an NFL-best 20 touchdowns in 2011, however, there's no way he's slipping outside the top-5 overall selections. As with the other members of the top tier, McCoy is a well-rounded player that can pile up yardage in both the running and passing games. Coach Andy Reid's suggestion he overworked McCoy isn't what owners want to hear; still, McCoy is talented enough to provide a solid return on the first-round investment you'll need to make.
Over the past three years, Jones-Drew has averaged 1,440 rushing yards per season, which includes a league-leading 1,606 in 2011. He's a proven scoring machine in the red zone (62 career TDs in six seasons) and is about as durable as they come. His lengthy holdout raises some potential red flags about his conditioning early on, but that's not enough to warrant skipping him now that he has reported.
Nearly a consensus No. 1 overall pick entering last season, Johnson held out for a new contract and went on to shit the bed for much of 2011, forcing a nickname change from CJ2K to CJ2.8 before huge games in Weeks 10, 12 and 13 somewhat salvaged his campaign. Coming off such a humbling performance and without the distraction of the lockout/holdout combo, Johnson should bounce back to viable No. 1 Fantasy back status.
Like Johnson, Lynch got off to an abysmal start to 2011 before closing with six 100-plus-yard showings in Seattle's final nine games. He's a bruising presence and a force in the red zone. Plus, with Russell Wilson taking the snaps, coach Pete Carroll figures to lean heavily on the run — we could even see more of Lynch as a receiver out of the backfield (he caught 47 balls for Buffalo in 2008).
Before getting hurt, McFadden had the look of a breakout star. Through six games he'd run for 610 yards on 111 carries (5.5 YPC) and scored four times. Project that over a 16-game slate and you end up with 1,627 yards and 11 touchdowns. The departure of Michael Bush means McFadden should get even more looks this season, provided, of course, he remain healthy — something he has never done. Despite the injury risk, Run DMC's upside is too good to pass up.
There are plenty of parallels between Forte and McFadden, including potentially great seasons derailed by injuries and the presence of Michael Bush, who is now Forte's backup in Chicago. With his contract issues resolved, Forte steps back in as the primary ball carrier, which could be a busier role with Mike Tice replacing Mike Martz as offensive coordinator. The big issue with Forte is the same one RotoRob writer Buck Davidson had in high school — he just doesn't score.
How depressed is the Fantasy running back market? Well, it's bad enough that a guy with seven career starts and three good games is pretty much a consensus top-10 choice. Murray certainly impressed over a four-week span, but bear in mind he was fresh — a phenomenon we've seen repeatedly with running backs that open the year as reserves. His skills are intriguing, as is his upside, but if you're leaning on Murray as your top back you're taking an undeniable risk.
In the time it took me to write DeMarco Murray's profile, Matthews suffered another injury… well, maybe not, but he wasted no time in breaking his clavicle during the pre-season opener. When healthy, Mathews has top-5 potential with an army of JAGs (just a guy) as his backups now that Mike Tolbert has moved to Carolina. If you can absorb the early hit, Mathews could pay huge dividends down the road… or, then again, he could rupture his taint climbing out of the shower.
There's no questioning Peterson's talent. The condition of his knee, however, is another story. Combine that with how good Toby Gerhart looked in his stead and you have to wonder how long it'll be before we see AD as the bell cow he's been since entering the league. Peterson figures to start slow; how he finishes will determine whether he was worth the early-round pick he'll cost you. Caveat emptor.
Turner is what he is — a tough as nails, between-the-tackles runner that couldn't catch a cold. Pencil him in for around 1,300 yards rushing, 10-plus scores and roughly zero snaps in obvious passing situations.
Seven straight years Jackson has registered more than 1,000 yards rushing, along with at least 40 receptions in all but one of those campaigns. That he's done it on some truly awful teams is a testament to his physicality and will to compete. Unfortunately, the odometer is starting to get pretty high on S-Jax, and it's debatable how effective he'll be after taking even more punishment from eight-man fronts that will dare Sam Bradford to beat them. Despite this, he's a borderline top-10 option.
With a career average of 6.1 yards per carry, Charles is a proven big play threat. He's also coming off a major knee injury, which is concerning for someone whose game is built around speed and suddenness. The Chiefs hedged their bets by importing the Albino Rhino from Cleveland, which should keep Charles from being overworked. Where Hillis' arrival hurts, though, figures to be around the goal line where his massive frame is better suited to take the punishment than Charles. At this spot, though, few players offer Charles' upside.
Offseason knee surgery may have scared some, but Richardson has a good chance to play in Week One and should become the focal point of Cleveland's offense in short order. Of course, defenses know this as well, so Richardson figures to see plenty of attention. As arguably the most talented running back to enter the NFL since Adrian Peterson, though, he's worth the risk as your second back.
Gore is a steady, unspectacular performer, averaging between 73 and 80 rushing yards per game in each of the last five seasons. He'll cede touches to the combination of Brandon Jacobs, LaMichael James and Kendall Hunter throughout the year to keep him fresh. That double-edged sword puts him firmly as a No. 2 Fantasy option.
In five NFL campaigns, Bradshaw has had just one truly difference-making season when he rushed for 1,235 yards during his lone 16-game effort. He's a solid all-around player, though, and the departure of Jacobs should open up more red-zone opportunities — he's scored 26 times over the past three years.
With LaDainian Tomlinson retired, the bulk of the rushing duties in New York should fall to Greene, who gained a career-high 1,054 yards last season. The big concern for Greene is the presence of Tim Tebow — a running quarterback that's bigger than Greene and has a dozen rushing TDs in two NFL seasons. If, as expected, Tebow vultures the goal-line carries, Greene's upside is limited.
Helu's stock gets a nice bump following the release of his presumptive RBBC buddy, Tim Hightower. The second-year back is a natural fit for Mike Shanahan's running attack, and he reached the 100-yard plateau in three of the four games in which he saw extended duty last season. That being said, Shanahan is not known for standing behind a single runner, which gives Helu some legitimate risk.
Want to see a short list? Then write down all the effective NFL RBs over 30. Go ahead, we'll wait… (waiting) (still waiting)… done? Odds are that list is two names long, and one of them is Jackson; plus considering he's only played five years in the NFL the 31-year-old almost deserves an asterisk. A strong runner and solid receiver, Jackson is a second Fantasy option even with C.J. Spiller around.
And would you look at that — the other half of our over-30 All-Stars is next! McGahee, who technically won't turn 31 until October, looked all kinds of done during his final season in Baltimore before the thin air in Denver rejuvenated him. He's a reliable presence for Peyton Manning, but his lack of receiving chops (and the presence of Ronnie Hillman) figures to keep him off the field on third downs.
The diminutive Sproles had a monster season in 2011, compiling 1,313 total yards (on an absurd 7.6 yards per touch) and nine touchdowns. Part of his heavy usage had to do with injuries to last year's first-round pick, Mark Ingram, and with Ingram healthy, Sproles' touches should decline.
Stewart was a red-zone dynamo his first two seasons (20 TDs) but has fallen on hard times the last two years with only six ground scores. He's an effective runner (4.8 YPC over his career) and emerging threat as a pass catcher; the question with him is how many touches he will garner in a backfield that includes DeAngelo Williams, Mike Tolbert and dynamic dual-threat Cam Newton.
Left for dead after a dismal 2010 showing in New Orleans, Bush resurrected his career with 1,382 total yards and seven touchdowns last year. If he can stay on the field he could produce nice numbers, especially with young Ryan Tannehill under centre and likely looking for safe outlet receivers.
Green-Ellis takes over for Cedric Benson in Cincinnati, and he should see a lot more carries this year than he did in New England's explosive offense. The Law Firm is coming off a disappointing season, and he has never been a contributor in the passing game, but his ability in short yardage (24 combined TDs in 2010-11) and the Bengals' desire to pound the ball make him a solid addition.
After two largely disappointing seasons, Wells finished 2011 with 1,047 yards and 10 touchdowns. Those numbers seem like attainable goals for 2012 as well, even with Ryan Williams returning from injury after missing all of last year. Devalue Wells a bit in point-per-reception leagues.
Ingram was the first running back selected in the 2011 NFL Draft, and with defenses focused on stopping Drew Brees and the Saints' passing attack, he figured to see lots of open running lanes. Instead, his rookie season was marred by injuries. He's the most talented all-around back on New Orleans' roster, but despite his upside he shouldn't be drafted as more than a third back.
New England's offensive game plan may be to pass, pass and then pass again, but someone has to inherit Green-Ellis' 181 carries from a season ago and Ridley is the likely top option (with fellow second-year man Shane Vereen looming). There's some interesting upside here based on Ridley's skill set, though Vereen's presence creates some risk as well.
When the Bucs moved back into the first round to select Boise State's Martin in April you knew it didn't bode well for the fumble-prone LeGarrette Blount; and sure enough, Martin was given the job in preseason. Tampa's offense isn't as bad as it looked much of last year, and any bounce back from Josh Freeman should give Martin the chance to challenge for a top-20 Fantasy RB showing by season's end.
Benson has rushed for better than 1,000 yards in each of the last three seasons. In Green Bay's aerial show, however, he's unlikely to be more than a two-down, change-of-pace option due to his shortcomings as a receiver and pass protector. He'll see plenty of seven-man fronts, though, and could surprise in a reduced role.
With Fred Jackson sidelined, Spiller showed those that affixed the bust label to him after an uninspired rookie campaign that they'd acted prematurely. His final numbers (830 total yards, six touchdowns) aren't eye popping, but if used properly he could do a reasonable Sproles impression in Buffalo's versatile offense.
As Rashard Mendenhall continues to work his way back from a torn ACL, Redman has been penciled in as Pittsburgh's primary back entering 2012. It's a fluid situation, however; not just because of Mendenhall's rehab but also due to the strong preseason of Jonathan Dwyer. With so many moving parts Redman, becomes a risky selection as your third back.
Gerhart was a forgotten man in Minnesota until Peterson got banged up. After mustering a measly 21 combined touches over the season's first 10 weeks, Gerhart closed with 92 carries for 431 yards and 19 receptions for 136 yards to go along with four touchdowns over the final seven. Depending on how quickly AD gets back to speed Gerhart could hold appreciable value.
Williams bounced back from an injury-shortened 2010 to average 5.4 yards per carry last year — his best mark since 2008 when he ran for 1,515 yards and scored 20 times. He only carried the ball 155 times, though, and with a crowded backfield it's unlikely that'll increase much (barring injury).
As the backup to injury-prone Darren McFadden, Bush averaged 740 rushing yards and six TDs per season over the past three years. He's now set to back up Matt Forte in Chicago, and those averages look like a solid baseline for his 2012 production. And, should Forte miss time again, Bush has the potential to be a weekly contributor.
After appearing on the cover of Madden NFL '12, Hillis' season was jinxed before it began. He battled injuries and contract issues, appeared in just 10 games and watched his yardage plummet from 1,177 in 2010 to 587 last year. Hillis should be the "thunder" to Jamaal Charles' "lightning" this season, and his size and power make him the more likely red zone ball carrier.
Tate missed his entire rookie season but looked legit in 2011 as Arian Foster's backup. Tate ran for 942 yards on 175 carries and did great work when Foster was out of action. He's a smart pickup for Foster owners and an enticing stash option for others.
Wilson, a rookie out of Virginia Tech, is set to back up Ahmad Bradshaw this season and pick up at least some of the 152 rushing attempts that Brandon Jacobs took with him to San Francisco. He's a nice choice as a speculative reserve with upside.
Brown hasn't lived up his first-round status, but if you're looking for encouraging signs, he did post respectable numbers (134-635-5) last year. He's also a starter for a Bruce Arians' offense that features a rookie quarterback. That all adds up to some sneaky sleeper potential.
Entering last season, many expected Thomas to be the primary back in Miami. He started strong — 41 carries for 202 yards in two games — but trailed off dramatically and did next to nothing over the final month-plus of the season. He's firmly behind Bush on the depth chart; given Bush's durability history, though, that isn't the worst place to be.
Were he healthy, Mendenhall would be a top-12 back. However, coming off a torn ACL on January 1 and with no definite return date, the fifth-year pro's value for 2012 is anything but certain. Fantasy owners should consider him someone to stash with the hope he'll provide late-season value.
How bad is the running back situation in Motown? Well, here we are in the 40s and we're just coming to our first Lions' RB — and this one didn't play a down in 2011 and is opening this season suspended. However, with Jahvid Best (concussion) on the PUP it seems like LeShoure will see most of the action once he returns. Draft him as depth.
Like LeShoure, Williams was injured during the preseason last year and has zero regular-season carries on his resume. Unlike LeShoure, however, Williams is stuck behind a 1,000-yard runner in the person of Beanie Wells. Given the uncertainty at quarterback in Arizona, the team could look to its backfield to control games, which gives Williams some potential.
Starks' durability is a red flag — he's been out since the first week of the preseason due to turf toe, which prompted the signing of Cedric Benson — but when healthy he has shown toughness and more upside than any other back on Green Bay's roster. Hide him on your bench to see how things shake out once he's back to full strength.
A year ago Blount was an up and comer. Now he's backing up another rookie after showing little as a pass blocker or receiver and putting the ball on the ground too often. Still, for late-round depth you could a lot worse than this 247-pound road grader.


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Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
Yes! All of our athletic fields, volleyball courts, tennis courts and shelters are reservable for a nominal fee. For more information, visit http://indiantrail.org/149/Parks-Recreation.
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The parks are generally open from dawn till dusk, though you can reserve fields or courts with lights for a small fee.
The hotline for athletic field closure is 704-821-4950. This hotline will be updated in the event of inclement weather and the need to close down fields. We will update the line when necessary by 4 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. on weekends.
Yes! We have a variety of sponsorship opportunities. Contact Hayden Kramer at firstname.lastname@example.com to find the sponsorship program that's right for you and your business.
The Town of Indian Trail has excellent staff well equipped to maintain all of the amenities we offer. If you notice something that needs attention, please contact Hayden Kramer at firstname.lastname@example.com.
The office hours are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.
The shelter costs vary depending on the time of day you are interested in. We offer three different costs. For more information, visit http://indiantrail.org/464/ShelterRoom-Rentals.
We offer a variety of volunteer opportunities. Visit http://indiantrail.org/282/Volunteering for more information and to fill out the Volunteer Application Form.


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The City of Garland provides a web-based Career Center for posting available positions and accepting applications. View and apply to current job opportunities with the City of Garland. If you do not have internet access at home, you may apply in the Human Resources Department at City Hall or at a Garland Public Library location.
No, applications are only available online during the application period.
Applications are accepted online only.
No, your score on the Civil Service test determines your ranking. However, certifications will serve as tie-breakers.
Yes. You can become certified through the Texas Commission on Fire Protection, but you will still have to go through the Garland Fire Department Academy.
Not initially. Garland does not require college hours to be employed. However, after you reach higher certifications with the State of Texas and have completed certain years of service, you can receive additional pay based on college hours and/or a degree.
Yes, all recruits are required to complete the Garland Fire Academy.
You must have a high school diploma or GED to be hired. If hired, you will be required to attend paramedic school and the fire academy. You must become certified as a condition of employment.
No. Applications are only accepted when a test date is established. If you wish to be notified, please complete an online profile.
No. Each city administers its own test.
Study material is available when an entrance exam is scheduled. You can find the study material at Careers.GarlandTX.Gov.
No. Garland does not utilize volunteer firefighters. We have a fully paid fire department staff.